We keep going with the coverage of our 8th Custom Contest, which had “Fantasy Castings” as its theme, with the Modified class, which allows accesories and much more extensive alterations to the car’s body compared with the two previous classes, on top of the usual wheelswapping, general detailing, etcetera.

As stated in ourrulebook, every class was judged under the principle that the participating customs had to stick to the contest’s theme. Having said that, we leave you with the entries for this class and their customizers. Down bellow you’ll find the winners of the first three places, with a small photoshoot of each, as well as commentary from our judges regarding why they won.

Judges comment: The Fig Rig is a Hot Wheels that is compatible with Lego figures and bricks, which is genius as a toy for children, but for this very same reason, it’s not a model that customizers crave, as its difficult to see its potential; but José had enough vision to smooth away all the protuberances that made the truck compatible with Legos at the front as well as the back, and filled out the resulting holes with epoxy. This, along with a metallic gray hue, brought to the forefront the hidden potential of the casting, turning it into an attractive truck that reminded us of the mid-2000s retro-futuristic concept cars from Chevrolet. Finding potential in the last place we would have looked for it gave José the third place of the class.

Judges comment: Another case of realizing deeply hidden potential: Romher took an Ollie Rocket and decided it was futuristic enough that, with a few mods, it could be a futuristic spaceship, so he flipped the wheels and turned them into propulsors, like the Back to The Future flying cars. But Romher didn´t stop there –when does he?- and decided to go further with the concept of this custom: a battle/racing ship, just like those in Star Wars Episode last or the Red Line anime. He added some machine guns and gave it a paint treatment that simulates rust, wear and tear over bare metal. With quite an uncommon concept and an excellent execution, Romher took second place.

Judges comment: Hot Wheels’ Formul8r looks like an endurance racer from the future right out of the blister, so Ahmed simply rounded out that concept with details like the rear wing, mirrors and the nose camera, and of course, the very correct Rebellion livery, a professional racing team from the LMP2 class of the World Endurance Championship, creating a LMP2 racing car from a future that will never be. Few customs in the entire contest had such a well achieved and focused concept, giving Ahmed the win in Modified.